Ripping with Windows Media Audio 9.2 Lossless

I just started ripping some of my old "Crossing all Over" CD's and because I have all kinds of room on my 2nd internal drive I decided to use Windows Media Audio 9.2 Lossless which records VBR Quality 100, 44 kHz, 2 channel 16 bit 1-pass VBR. Oh wow what a H U G E difference compared to the MP3 stuff I have from other sources. And it really didn't take all that long to rip 18 disks.
I didn't tag because I know all the songs(I used to be a rock/punk rock/metal DJ about 9 years long at 2 different clubs), I just wanted them all as one play list shat shuffles(pinned to WMP it starts with a different song every time I open it).
I really recommend to anyone who just wants to play WMP and leave the music on the PC(mine is connected to my Home Cinema thru HDMI) try WMA Lossless. It actually sounds better than the CDs playing on my Philips CDR 785(not cheap).

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose WMA over WAV? Isn't WAV more widely supported?

Another question, what software are you using to rip with? Are you using EAC, which is really, really good?

Exact Audio Copy

Rocky said:

Just out of curiosity, why did you choose WMA over WAV? Isn't WAV more widely supported?

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It's just for when I'm on my PC, and so it's enough that WMP plays it, plus I find the sound better when I'm listening through HDMI to my HDTV or Home Cinema.

Rocky said:

Another question, what software are you using to rip with?

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I just use WMP which is also fast, because in this case these were CDs I used when I use to DJ at a couple of rock clubs, so I know pretty much what's on them. But WMA pro has good really sound when one has enough space and it's just for when you play WMP.

I think WMA lossless is a poor choice. If you want to store your music as lossless files you should either go for FLAC or Wave since those are open and widely supported formats. Using proprietary codecs makes you dpendant on certain companies and their products which is never a good thing.

That was my intention in my post up thread. I really think that both the sound quality and the flexibility of WMA fall very short of FLAC and WAV. I use WAV simply out of a matter of convenience, but FLAC is also wonderful and it has a lot more support than WMA.

altae said:

I think WMA lossless is a poor choice. If you want to store your music as lossless files you should either go for FLAC or Wave since those are open and widely supported formats. Using proprietary codecs makes you dpendant on certain companies and their products which is never a good thing.

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WMA can also be played on linux media players, so I'm not restricted to any certain company. Also (My personal taste)I find WMA pro sounds pretty good(in any case better than the MP3 files others have given me). I wanted to write "The problem with open source is a lot of times the dev's give up on their projects and stop supporting/working on their project", BUT, then I realized the happens just as often with propriety software too, and at least open source has the code out there so someone else can take the project over to further develop it.
I am not storing my music, I just decided to put some of my mix sampler CD's on my PC so I don't have to change them every 3/4 of an hour when the finish playing when I'm trying to do something on it.

That might be fine your needs today, but I think that ripping with Exact Audio Copy and storing the music as WAV files or FLAC files gives a person a much better quality sound with a much wider support base. Exact Audio Copy

Also, for playback one can not beat foobar2000 playing back using WASAPI. This whole scheme is free and provides bit perfect playback.

foobar2000

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd371455(v=vs.85).aspx

Ha! You like German software. Seriously for an audio player what I really like is Audacious when I'm using a Debian based OS, but I find it pretty unstable with Windows. It has great sound, plugins, and preference choices(specially for headphone users). I'll take a look at EAC thanks for the links. It might come in useful if I ever decide to put all my CD's on HDD and them store them in a better controlled environment than my livingroom(even they don't last for ever at least the oldest ones).
Between FLAC & WAV, which one is better for storage and which one is better for everyday playing? Also how about the use of tagging in both?

Seriously, I started collecting CDs in 1984 and I have had exactly zero fail on me, so I really see no long term storage problems with the physical discs. I simply keep mine in my living room, in a regular cabinet, and there is never an issue. But I started my ripping program about 5 years ago, and I am just about complete. It has been fun. WAV really does not do metadata well, if you are into tagging then choose FLAC. I chose WAV because tagging was not an issue for me, I simply organize my files the same way that I organize my physical library. It is quick and easy for me. Exact Audio Copy does extract some metadata, but I switched to dbpowerAmp about 2 years ago, which supplies a phenomenal amount of metadata. I only have about 5,000 CDs, but the whole computer audiophile hobby is fun and rewarding.

I had a couple of CDs where the reflective metal started getting holes 3 years after buying them(in the 80's).
The reason behind putting my music on my HDD is I get bored listening to an album through, specially when I know it good. With an audio player one can organize the playlists by genre(blues, metal, punk, crossover and jazz) and set it to shuffle and play it Forrest Gump style( My momma always said, "[DEL]Life[/DEL] Music is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." )

I prefer FLAC over Wave for the following reasons:
- Tagging (meta data)
- Smaller files (but no quality loss due to lossless compression)

So if you ask me I'd recommend FLAC. But if you don't intend to tag your audio files and storage space is not an issue Wave is just as good. And seriously, if you use Linux I really wonder why you want to use WMA which is a proprietary Microsoft codec.